The Food Chain - What's Eating What Radio

We have, for the most, lost the ability to make things for ourselves, and so must buy those things from China. Flush with our cash, the people of China can now afford to buy the foods that have made us tall and strong. This leads us to ask…

Decades ago, we left the farm for the city. Yet today we sing, I'm gonna leave this city, got to get away! This leads us to ask: “What will we find when we move back to the farm?” Topics include why city people move to the farm; the kind of

E. Coli 0157:H7 has precipitated a civil war in the nation’s salad bowl. On one side are those who say all forms of extraneous life should be removed from farms. On the other side are those who advocate for adding more life. This leads us to ask,

We now live in a world where everything costs much more today than it did yesterday. This leads us to ask,

A few short years ago, 35% of the county’s farmers were 65 years or older, and more than half of the county’s farmers reported having no on to take over the farm. Then someone discovered Placer Gold! Topics include why farms were disappeari

Topics include the trends of eating out and eating in; the ingredients required to cook up a successful food service business; and ways to construct a food service business so diner and server both win the dollars. Guest:Tom Bruce, Consultant, Central

Knowing every country needs more farmland to feed the future, financial speculators are buying up farmland. And so farmers who once owned farmland now must rent. This leads us to ask, Can farmers who rent sustain farmland for the future? Topic include

Topics include why the need for organic goat milk instead of baby formula; the miniature goat solution to feeding babies; and whether cities should allow their residents the freedom to raise food animals. Guests: Gingi Freeman & Kristeina Wolfert,

Government is now restricting what we may eat, but is leaving us free to glop 10,500 chemicals on to make our skin look good. This leads us to ask…

Birds do it. Bees do it. Even the flowers and the trees do it. But given how smart we think we are, why did it take us 14,000 years to realize plants actually do it. That we now know plants do it, we wonder, Do plants enjoy sex? Topic include a histo

Topics include why we city dwellers agreed to become ignorant about the foods we eat; what consequences we face by maintaining this ignorance; and whether we should, or should not, learn the story of our food. Guests: Ann Vileisis, Author, Kitchen Lit

Some look to doctors and hospitals for healing and hope; others look to the smiling faces in Washington, DC. But a few still look to the wisdom of grandmothers, and they lead us to ask….

"Violence is never the answer," claims horse whisperer Monty Roberts. This leads us to ask: How can one break a horse by whispering to it? Topics include the various techniques for breaking horses; why gentleness works better than violence for

She was a corporate attorney, but chucked it all to become the love in Love Apple Farms, where she now grows for David Kinch’s world-famous Manresa Restaurant. Her biodynamic incantations lead us to ask…

Topics include the Mexican tradition of making tequila and mezcal; how the making of tequila and mezcal was industrialized; and the resurgent market for traditional small batch tequilas and mezcals. Guest: Chantal Martineau, author of How The Gringos

For the fourth time in 15 years, USDA has confessed to practicing institutional racism and sexism. This serial discrimination, for which taxpayers must pay $5 Billion and more, leads us to ask…

Sometimes we simply must break the pattern– go someplace different and do something different. And so we travel to the Tuscany to establish a vineyard. Topics include why the Tuscany is attractively "human-scaled;" how starting a vineya

While listening to a Shipibo shaman lecture on the efficacy of herbs along the headwaters of the Amazon, an ant bit into my index finger. Looking down from the vine I had been leaning against, the ant said… Topics include why anthropologists like

We demand so much Made in China that a new coal-burning power plant must be built every week just to keep us satisfied. Mercury emitted from that burning coal wafts high into the air before falling into our water. This leads one to ask: “Can we sur

During the Great Depression, the Works Progress Administration hired writers to document what America was eating. From these accounts it is evident that what we were eating is not what we are eating, which leads us to ask…

Guest: Open Microphone

60 million people now rely on a government $150 trillion in debt (give or take) for food. This leads us to ask…

In the leafy green fields of the nation’s salad bowl, growers are killing off wildlife. One grower was reported to have poisoned his ponds to prevent frogs from hopping around his fields. This leads us to ask…

Topic include the 100 trillion microorganisms that live within each of our bodies; what those organisms do within our body; and whether we are what we eat, or we are what they eat? Guests: David Montgomery & Anne Bikle

Fats are bad! No, fats are good! Carbohydrates are good! No, carbohydrates are bad! We have been given a lot of advise as to how we should eat, and yet we keep eating ourselves into big trouble. This leads us to ask...